Alexi
by Skendr
Summary: Alexi's parents suddenly decide one day to send her on a pokemon journey. Having lived on an island her whole life, Alexi knows nothing of the real world and is starting to discover that there's more to the real world than she first thought.
1. The Dream

**Alexi**

Chapter One- The Dream

Dark. Scared. She strained her eyes. There must be something there. She threw her hands out. They felt air. They felt space. She span on the spot, reaching out for something to show her where she was. As she span, the black became a blur, and in the blur, there was a light. Alexi became aware of this and stopped. Faded purple light somewhere over there. She reached for it, but her feet stayed rooted on the spot and she fell onto hard concrete underfoot. She turned on her stomach and looked up. Above her, she found it. Here it was, the source of the light.

A dark purple shadow glistened, and Alexi's eyes focused. She gasped air in shock. It was a monster. A huge, cream beast, with fourteen tube-like, scaly, stinking legs erupting from the tummy of a body like a fierce wild cat. Its tail was thick like a lion's, and wings ripped out from its back; ragged, leathery, grotesque. Its nose was long on its face. Its snout was sniffing. Its eyes were straight, sharp shapes of dark purple- the source of the quivering light. Most fierce of all, the eyes. Glistening sickening mystery shone out of them and caught Alexi's mind. They pushed her backwards into the darkness and she screamed.

Alexi pushed herself onto her knees and, tripping over the darkness, ran. Once again, the world was pitch black and unknown. The unknown was cold and huge, almost as terrible as the source of the light behind her, but she kept on running. Pushing herself forwards, through heavy nothing.

Her eyes screamed in agony as, suddenly, a blinding light encompassed her. She shielded herself, and the light pulled her away, took her up, into the air, through a tiny hole, and shoved her uncomfortably into a cramped place.

The dark returned, but it was no longer unknown. Alexi was inside something, something much smaller than she was, and her body was twisted absurdly to fit inside. She knew she was trapped. So cramped, so suffocated for space. The feeling was demeaning, like she no longer had control of her life. She couldn't stand it any more, she wouldn't put up with it. She shouted angrily at nobody and raised her hand to push against the shell, but her hand felt empty air.

Slits of light streamed through as Alexi opened her eyes. She lay still on her bed for a minute, moving herself from her horribly vivid dream back to her waking life, which seemed almost less real.

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After a minute or two, Alexi feltshe had returnedand she pulled herself out of bed, brushed her short, messy, dark hair out of her striking blue eyes and pushed open her bedroom door.

Alexi's bedroom was rather unusual as far as bedrooms go- it was made up of a tangled ball of leaves, twigs and bark, like a birds' nest, and held high up in the trees by branches which poked into it. There was a wooden bridge which led from her door, along the treetops to more cocoon rooms, all sitting comfortably on branches more than fifty feet from the forest floor. However, this is where Alexi had spent her entire life, and so was not unusual to her at all.

As she walked across the wooden bridges that connected her home, pokemon chirped and scuttled around her. Butterfree flittered past busily, Nincada and Heracross scuttled up trunks, Pidgey chirped in their nests. Celebi flew past playfully.

Another unusual event that seemed so everyday to Alexi was the sighting of legendary pokemon. The island that Alexi and her parents lived on wasa sanctuaryto legendary pokemon that would have been in danger of being captured in the real world, but as Alexi had never been away from her island, she was completely unaware that these pokemon were any more unusual than the Pidgey or Butterfree she heard every morning. This was simply how she had always known things to be.

Alexi lived on an island far away from anywhere else, impossible to pinpoint and impossible to reach by water or air. Thick cloud cover kept the island hidden from anyone watching outside. It was a place where legendary pokemon came to hide from the rest of the world. It was the place Ho-oh rested when his flight was done, where Jirachi sat and watched the Earth. It was their home, their sanctuary, as it was Alexi's.

Alexi reached the door to her parents' bedroom and knocked politely. After a minute, her blonde, notably beautiful mother, Sandrine, pushed it open sleepily and let her inside.

"Good morning, precious. Did you sleep all right?" she asked her only daughter.

"No, it was terrible."

Her father, Xander, with Alexi's dark hair and blue eyes and a chiseled, well-worn face, pushed himself up in bed and looked at her.

"What's wrong, Alexi? What happened?"

"Oh, nothing major. I had a yucky dream, that's all. It was really vivid, and I woke up all shaky and sweaty."

"Oh, that sounds terrible, darling," her mother consoled. "What was it about?"

Alexi paused for a minute, not really wanting to recount the events of the dream, but her mother's worried face made her continue.

"I was in the dark, and I was looking for light. And then I saw this monster thing, like a pokemon but much bigger. It was kind of like a lion, and it had lots of legs…"

Her voice trailed off as she tried to remember the rest of the dream, but her parents' shocked expressions made her stop.

"What? What is it?" she asked them.

"Are you hurt?" her mother asked, concerned, checking her arms and legs for signs of bruising.

"No, of course not, don't worry, it was only a dream, it's nothing to get so worked up about. What's wrong? What's the matter? Did I see something I shouldn't have?"

Her father stood up out of bed in his nightclothes and pulled on a dressing gown.

"Alexi, stay here. Your mother and I need to have a talk with some of the pokemon. Don't go anywhere, we'll be back in a minute." He gave a knowing but worried look at Sandrine, and they turned and walked out into the morning. Sandrine pulled the door shut in what she had wanted to seem as a calm, normal way.

"Just stay here, possum, we'll be back soon."

The door clicked shut and Alexi was left alone in her parents' bedroom. She sat down on the bed and, after a moment, fell back into it, thinking feverishly.

What had just happened? What had her dream meant? Where had her parents gone to? And why were they treating her like a little child? She was nearly thirteen and a half, after all, a perfectly grown-up, responsible age. She didn't need to be given instructions like 'stay put' any more. She could look after herself now.

Annoyed, she sat upright again and looked around the room for something to keep her occupied while she waited. There was hardly anything in the bedroom apart from the large double-bed which she was sitting on, a bedside table with a lamp on it, and the old chest which stayed against the wall eternally and was always locked. She knew this, because she had tried to open it countless times. Her mother always said to her "Whatever you do, don't go looking around our room when we're not watching. What's there is ours, and private, and doesn't concern you, and if something's locked, it's locked for a reason." Of course, since the day she said it, Alexi had been longing to open the box and see what treasures it held- nothing like reverse psychology for a curious tthirteen-year-old mind- but unfortunately for her, there was absolutely no chance she would ever see what was inside as her father kept the keys to it around his neck and only took them off when he went to bed and the door to the bedroom was locked.

And then, a wonderful thought occurred to Alexi, and she laughed out loud, because she couldn't help herself. Her father had left rather abruptly this morning, and when he got out of bed, he had forgotten to take the keys from his bedside table. And now she, Alexi, was alone, in her parent's bedroom, with the keys to the chest she had wanted to open for so long. Obviously, the fact that her father was so preoccupied with the dream she had had that he had forgotten to take his precious keys with him was a sign that he was extremely nervous about something and Alexi was probably in a lot of danger, but Alexi ignored this thought and pulled open the drawer of the bedside table eagerly. Sure enough, gleaming in the early morning light, were the keys to the eternally locked chest.

She grabbed them, ran to the chest, and shoved them in the keyhole. There was a satisfying click and she pushed the lid open. It was heavy, and creaked loudly. Alexi stuck her head inside the dusty chest and peered into the dark. It was full of pieces of paper, and folders and books and things. All completely boring- Thousands of pieces of paper are never a thirteen-year-old's idea of a good time. She opened one of the brown, dog-eared folders, looking for some kind of illustration for the story the papers told, and she screamed loudly without meaning to, and fell back on her tailbone with a fright.

The heavy wooden lid slammed shut with a huge crash and the lamp on the bedside table wobbled.

Alexi lay on the hard floor, looking at the ceiling, breathing heavily, unable to comprehend what she had seen. There, in the chest her parents had kept from her since she was born, was a clear, bright photo of the monster from her dream.

It was real.


	2. The Apricorn Tree

**Chapter Two-The Apricorn Tree and the Very Important Quest**

It was almost half an hour before Alexi's parents returned, but Alexi had hardly moved. She still couldn't comprehend the meaning behind the photo in the chest. She hadn't dared to open it again, preferring to pretend it didn't exist; she had locked it again and replaced the key in her father's bedside drawer. She sat on the bed, thinking, unaware of time until the door to the bedroom swung open again.

Her father was carrying a backpack, ready to burst, full to the zips. Her mother was holding the handle to a rather heavy looking suitcase that she had placed on the ground next to her. They both looked nervous, and kept exchanging glances at each other, neither wanting to talk. Alexi looked at them expectantly.

"Are we going somewhere?" she said. "Off the island?" She rather fancied a trip off the island; she had never been, and her curious mind had always wondered.

"No, Alexi." Her mother spoke first. "We can't come with you. You're going alone."

"What? Why not? How long will I be gone for?" Alexi's mind was racing.

It was her father who spoke next. "We don't know, Alexi. You're going to become a Pokemon Trainer."

Alexi's heart skipped a beat. A pokemon trainer! Her father had told her about trainers before- Alexi had been learning from him how to care for and train pokemon since she was six. Life as a pokemon trainer sounded exciting, full of adventure. But she was still apprehensive. Why was she leaving so suddenly? Why didn't her parents tell her about this before, so she could have prepared?

"Why?" she said simply to her worried parents.

"Well, every boy or girl gets to become a pokemon trainer when they're thirteen. Their parents send them out into the world, and they travel around, finding pokemon and looking after them."

"And battling them," Xander added.

"Yes, and…battling them, yes." Sandrine was obviously unsure about letting Alexia battle pokemon, and Alexia was not surprised. All her life, her parents had told her that pokemon were wonderful, beautiful creatures to be cared for and looked after,  
and to suddenly turn around and say to Alexia to make her pokemon battle each other  
seemed very out of the blue. Indeed, the whole concept of 'owning' pokemon seemed very strange and almost unheard of in Alexia's protected island. But her father had told her that this was how things were done on the big island, on the mainland, in the real world. This was what pokemon were used for, and if Alexia was ever going to go out and discover what the world was like, she would need to be able to battle pokemon like everyone else.

"But why do I need to leave right now?" she said, still confused.

"Because we think it's the right time," her mother said, dodging the question.

"Because of your dream," her father added, ignoring the dirty look Sandrine had just shot her. Her continued.

"Your dream has made us very worried, Alexi, and we want you to be safe. We want you to be able to protect yourself against anything that might want to harm you, and we think that learning to become a pokemon trainer is a good way of defending yourself against dangerous things."

"Against what? What kind of pokemon was that monster I saw? What does it mean?" Alexi snapped back, realizing the chance she had to get some straight answers.

"Now, Alexi, I think that's enough questions for now," her mother cut in. "The point is that your father and I have realized it's time for you to leave the island and go and…learn about the world. We want you to become a pokemon trainer, which means that you need to leave here and learn to live by yourself. And that makes us very sad, so we'd like to say goodbye properly, and make sure we give you all the help we can before you go."

"Come with me, Alexi," Xander said, and he put his hand out for Alexi to hold. She waited, still unsure and very taken aback by how fast all this was happening.

"Go with your father, Alexi. You'll be fine, I'm sure. You'll make a wonderful trainer."

Alexi looked at her mother, searching for answers. She had so many questions. Why did she have to go so soon? Why couldn't she stay in the sanctuary? She began to ask her mother for guidance, and saw that her eyes were full of tears.

"You can come back home whenever you need to, possum," she said, her voice cracking.

And with that, Alexi smiled, wiped a tear away from her mother's cheek and said in a very soft, but very assuring voice "Goodbye, Mum. I'll see you soon."

Her mother smiled and hugged her, for almost twenty minutes. Alexi could feel her mother's heartbeat, and her breath get heavier as her sobbing continued. Her grasp was tight and protective, and she seemed unable to let go. She swayed her daughter slowly from side to side as she cried, and then took a deep breath and ruffled Alexi's hair playfully.

"You'll be fine," she said, and let go.

Alexi took her father's hand and he opened the bedroom door. Father and daughter walked out together, into the clear sunny day, onto the wooden walkway.

Alexi was too nervous to speak. What her father was about to show her seemed to be very important, she was anxious to take all of it in. They walked across the wooden walkway, Celebi floating up to greet them and somersaulting in the air, obviously aware of the grim atmosphere and wanting to cheer her friends up a little. Alexi wondered if she knew what was going on, if Celebi had been the pokemon her father had rushed off to talk to. She wished she had the skill her father had, she had always wanted to know what pokemon were thinking, but to her, they never said anything more interesting than their name.

Her father reached the long ladder, nailed to a tree trunk, which led to the forest floor. "This way, Alexi. We're going to the clearing."

Alexi watched her father make his way down, and then stepped onto the ladder herself, carefully lowering herself down, aware that Celebi was flitting around, making sure she could catch them if they fell.

Ah, Alexi thought. They were going to the clearing. She had always wondered what the point of that place was.

The clearing lay in roughly the center of the forest, and, apart from grass, the only thing that grew there was a large, round apricorn tree. Alexi could tell the apricorns that grew there were special, but she had never understood why. You couldn't eat them- so what was the point of them? Perhaps they held some magical power.

When they got to the clearing, unsurprisingly, her father walked up to the apricorn tree and picked one of the round, hard fruits. "This tree is special, Alexi," he said, as he walked back to her. "All apricorn trees are special, but this one is more so."

"An apricorn holds one, very special use. It can be picked, and fashioned, into a pokeball. This apricorn tree, however, is unique in that its apricorns grow with the ability to catch pokemon without human intervention. It was grown from a seed of the only other apricorn tree known to have had this gift. That tree, it is said, is where humans learned the art of making pokeballs from- it is where the idea stems from, and hence, where the tradition of pokemon training first began. That tree is dead- its ashes lie scattered across the Big Island. The only reason this tree still exists today is because nobody except for us knows of its existence. Do you understand?"

Alexi looked at her father blankly. She was trying with all her might to understand, but none of it was sinking in. What was a pokeball? What did catching pokemon have to do with training them? Her father continued nonetheless.

"I will now demonstrate how to use a pokeball. If a pokemon is unwilling to be captured, you must first weaken it in a battle. Celebi, however, agreed to this demonstration earlier when I told her about the events of thismorning."

Xander turned to Celebi and raised the apricorn. He threw it, and it hit her on the head, and bounced off onto the ground. As it bounced, a familiar white light engulfed the pokemon it had touched, and Celebi disappeared, trapped inside. Alexi now realized what the shell she had been ensnared in was. She had dreamt about being a pokemon, about being caught. She wondered if it meant anything, but a more important question was tugging at her brain.

"Why do you need to catch pokemon to be a trainer?" she asked.

"Because then the pokemon is yours, and you are free to command it however you wish. This is how millions of humans, some inadept at caring for and raising pokemon, have become trainers. They enslave pokemon against their will. And now you, too, must become a pokemon trainer, for enslavement seems to be the only language this world knows. The people this world worships and aspires to, the ones they adore so much; are not trainers, they are slavedrivers."

"What? Hang on, I don't understand. If pokemon trainers are so terrible, why do you want me to become one? You're not making any sense!" Alexi shouted, taken aback by the weight of what her father had told her.

"You need to become a pokemon trainer, Alexi. It is not my choice, but it's what needs to happen. People don't…they don't understand how to treat pokemon properly, they don't understand how to care for them. If you go and become a really great pokemon trainer by caring for and looking after your pokemon, you can show them the right way of doing things. But they will not listen if you are not great, which is why I have spent so much time preparing you for this."

Alexi didn't know how to respond. She certainly didn't feel prepared for this- she felt like she had just had a huge responsibility thrown onto her, and she wasn't sure how to deal with it. Luckily, her father seemed not to need a response in order to continue. He took Alexi's hand, and placed the apricorn pokeball with Celebi inside in it.

"Now Celebi is yours. You can command her as you wish. She will be your first pokemon, and your guardian on this journey. However, if any trainer finds out what pokemon you have possession of, they will lie and cheat their way to your heart, and they will take her from you. Do you understand?"

Alexi nodded. It seemed the only sensible thing to do.

"I'm glad. I'm sorry, Alexi, this must be a lot to take in for someone so young. Your mother and I never dreamed that we would need to tell you this when you were only thirteen, but we have no other choice. We're going to the pinnacle now. Suicune will carry us."

As Xander said this, Suicune appeared from the trees and walked to Alexi's side. She took hold of Suicune, and pulled herself onto her back. Her father did the same and, protecting her daughter, he took hold of the pokemon's neck. Suicune crouched low.

"Hold on," Xander said with a smile.

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The pinnacle was the name for the top of the huge volcano which sat in the middle of the island, bubbling and alive, but never active. When Suicune had dropped her and her father there, her mother was already waiting, Alexi's suitcase in hand, eyes still red and puffy. Alexi's father thanked Suicune graciously and walked up to the edge of the volcano. Alexi hugged her mother, took her suitcase, and followed him.

There was a rumbling sound from deep within the mountain, and the lava bubbled and plopped threateningly. Alexi realized she had no idea how anyone got away from the island- she had never been anywhere else, and nobody had ever come there. She knew it was stupidly hard to reach, even if you were aware it existed, but once you were there, how did you get off it again?

She was busy contemplating this when, from within the volcano, there was an almighty crash and the surface of the lava exploded. A sudden surge of heat hit Alexi's face painfully and she stood back as a gush of lava erupted from the mountain, so her eyebrows weren't charred off.

As suddenly as it had risen, the lava sunk back into the mountain, and in its wake was a giant, beautiful rainbow bird with golden feathers. Ho-oh landed gracefully on the volcano's edge, and nuzzled its beak up against Alexi.

"Hop on, Alexi. Ho-oh will take you to the Big Island." Alexi's father said behind her. 

He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her the backpack he had been carrying. "There is money inside. Once you get to the mainland, find a PokeMart and buy some pokeballs; the apricorn balls will attract too much attention. Remember, don't show Celebi to anyone; and there's one other thing. Don't tell anyone about us or the island. We want you to stay safe."

Alexi found this last request odd, although she realized there must be a reason why they lived away from the rest of the world, she had never thought to ask it. "Why not?" she said tentatively.

"We're in hiding, Alexi," her mother answered. "We have been all your life. But there's no need for you to hide any more. Go, learn what you need to, teach what they need to learn. The world is waiting for you, Alexi, although they don't know it yet. If ever you need to return to the Sanctuary, Celebi will show you how."

"Who are you hiding from?" Alexi continued, although she thought she could guess the answer.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, young girl. You'll find out for yourself, soon enough. You don't always need to be asking questions to answer them."

Alexi knew she wouldn't get her answer just yet. She turned to them each, painfully, and said her goodbyes.

"Goodbye Alexi. Look after yourself," her mother said, on the verge of tears again.

"You will be brilliant," her father said positively, beaming at her.

Alexi turned her back on her parents, the only two people she had ever known, and faced Ho-oh. He lowered his head, and Alexi hoisted herself among his beautiful feathers. With her suitcase in one hand and her backpack in the other, she braced herself and took one last look at her parents. They smiled and waved, and Ho-oh took flight.

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Behind him, a rainbow gleamed in the light and shot across the sky. Alexi turned to watch her home, her Sanctuary, get smaller and smaller, until she disappeared into a blanket of clouds.

When they reappeared, they were flying above a vast ocean, the waves like blades of grass below them. Alexi was in the air for what seemed like hours. Her grip on her suitcase got looser and looser as she felt herself slipping asleep. Every time she felt herself losing grip, Ho-oh would flap his wings to wake her again, but when Alexi first sighted land, there was no need to keep her on her toes any longer. She was more awake than she had ever been.

The land was green, though not nearly as green as the Sanctuary, and the forest was dark and more….menacing. The ocean hit the shore on a ragged coastline, which jutted out as steep, chalky cliffs for what seemed like miles. Alexi spotted a glimmer of light somewhere beyond the forest, which could be a town, but as she wondered, Ho-oh began his descent.

He landed above a rocky cliff-face, similar to the shoreline that stretched as far as the eye could see. Alexi slid off Ho-oh's back, and she nuzzled his neck gratefully. Then, he took off again, in a spray of rainbow light. Alexi was left alone, the forest in front of her. She stared at it for a minute and then sighed.

"Well, here goes," she said to herself.

And with that, she took off towards the trees.


	3. The Goode Family

**Chapter Three- The Goode Family's Incredible Hospitality**

Alexi took two steps towards the daunting forest, stopped, and then sat down on the windy grass. If this was going to be the beginning of her pokemon journey, she wanted to make sure she did it right.

She grabbed her bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a belt for pokeballs. She found Celebi's apricorn ball and rolled it round in her hand for a minute. It was so beautiful, so precious. So dangerous. But however rare the pokemon, it was Alexi's only one, and she was keen to keep protection close at hand at the moment. She stood up, attached the belt to her faded jeans, and stuck the apricorn ball to it. Now she was ready for anything. She took up her backpack and suitcase once more and meandered through the first few trees of the forest.

As she wandered through wilderness, she listened to the sounds of the ocean hitting the cliff behind her getting more and more distant. And maybe it was the intimidating, curly trees blocking out the light but she distinctly felt the sun go down as the forest grew deeper- as if one was making way for the other. Alexi had never been in a forest that wasn't her home; if she had, she might have noticed the distinct lack of any common pokemon like Pidgey, or Rattata- or, indeed, any pokemon at all. As it was, she just assumed that that was how all "real" forests were.

What felt like night fell, and the Hoothoot came out of hiding. This forest was full of them, twooting and hooing in that ridiculous, comical, unnervingly humanesque way. There were hundreds of them; one on every tree, almost. Alexi kept on wandering through the trees. She didn't really know where she thought she was going to end up, but she had a vague idea that if she kept walking in the same direction, she might reach what she had previously recognised as a town. It wasn't until the dark was pitch and thick, and the Hoothoot had completely stopped, that she realised how lost she was. Hindsight now came to her. What Alexi needed now, more than anything else, was another pokemon. Celebi wasn't going to be much use to her if she couldn't let anyone see it, and sooner or later she was going to run into someone who would want to know what pokemon she had. She could use Celebi to catch one, althought she wasn't sure how; if she was smart, she would have caught the very first Hoothoot she had seen, put Celebi away in her bag, taken for the town and pretended that the legendary pokemon she had possession of didn't exist. Hindsight, she realised, was never a good thing for positive reinforcement. Defeated and blinded by the darkness, she fell to the forest floor clumsily.

She sat there for a minute or two, listening to the creaking and shivering of the trees, combing the night sounds for something that resembled a pokemon she could catch and pretend was her first. Then she heard it. A great, deep howling from somewhere else in the forest. A Mightyena call- enough to kill every flicker of hope in any person unlucky enough to catch a note of it. Not the most consoling thing for Alexi to hear at the moment. She groaned in response, feeling that everything that could be going wrong right now was, and Mightyena howled again in reply. The sound had moved to the other end of the forest, which meant another pokemon. Alexi quickly deducted that there was a pack nearby. Slowly but surely, the creaking of the trees became low, grumbling growls of warning from the wolf pokemon that had put her on edge. The sounds were closer this time, and seemed to surround her.

Suddenly, there was a kind of splattery smack from a pile of leaves near her left foot and she retreated it immediately. She peered closer to the source of the noise, a completely useless action in utter blackness. The leaves were rustling, unmistakeably. There was something in them.

Alexi extended her trembling hand, covering her eyes with the other. Somehow she had forgotten she was sitting in the dark. When she realised that covering her hand had achieved nothing, she stopped and laughed aloud to herself.

"I'm so stupi-AAAARGH!" her voicebox croaked. Her fingers had just curled around something thick and slimy, and she had thrown it into the trees instantly as a reflex. As soon as she'd done it, she realised she'd just thrown away the pokemon she was looking to catch, and hit herself hard on the forehead as punishment with the slime-covered hand, coating her face in the stuff. It wasn't even worth a second groan; things like that always happened when there was nobody around to laugh with you.

"Right then, slimey thing. Prepare to meet your master. Celebi, appear!" Alexi grabbed the apricorn ball and held it at arms length apprehensively, her eyes shut tight in anticipation, waiting for her pokemon to appear. Nothing happened.

"Um…Celebi…come out now," Alexi tried. "Now! Appear….now! Appear….now!" She stopped and sighed, thinking over what she was saying and, as she couldn't be bothered thinking of anything else to say, she began again. Something would work eventually, surely. "Come on, Celebi, you know you want to. Come on Celebi, go!"

With these last words, Celebi appeared from the apricorn ball in a flash of blinding white light. A kind of green glow which surrounded Celebi half lit up the forest floor in front of her, and Alexi identified the bug pokemon she had thrown, which was now crawling away sheepishly, as a Wurmple. She silently thanked her somewhat laidback lucky stars that she hadn't grabbed the pokemon's spiky head or tail, but instead its slimy belly.

"Right then Celebi, I want you to catch Wurmple for me! Here, take this pokeball."

Celebi turned at looked at Alexi in disbelief. There was an awkward pause as Alexi waited for her pokemon to respond to her outrageous command. Celebi blinked sarcastically.

"Ok then…attack it…so I can catch it myself. But don't use any attacks that might kill it, or hurt it too much. Just weaken it a little bit, kinda. Sort of. Ok then, don't."

The overpowerful legendary hadn't changed its blank expression, much to Alexi's dismay.

"Oh, well what the hell am I supposed to do then, eh?" Alexi spurted at her. "If you're so clever, why don't you just show me how it's done? As you've probably guessed, I haven't had much practice at this whole 'catch the pokemon, make them yours' thing. I could use a little help." Celebi blinked again. "Alright then, fine. Move out of the way, and let me handle this myself."

Alexi pushed Celebi aside with one hand and reached for a pokeball in her pack with the other. She found one, took aim in the soft green light and threw it.

"Pokeball, go!" she shouted, mimicking her father. It missed Wurmple completely, and hit the mushy forest floor with an anticlimax you could cut with a knife. Alexi took to her feet in a rage, stumbled angrily over to the pokeball, brushed rotten leaves and mud off it and turned to face the Wurmple, which was now making its way slowly, as fast as it could, up a tree trunk.

"Right, slug-guts. I've had just about all I can take from you. Get in my pokeball! NOW! OR ELSE!" Alexi's shouts echoed around the trees. Wurmple seemed not to notice Alexi's screaming too much, although it changed its direction on the tree and started wriggling round it, presumably to get away from the uncomfortable noise emitting from the human that was pursuing her.

With a deep breath, Alexi raised the pokeball she had picked up off the ground and touched its top, very gently, to Wurmple's wiggling nose. The weak pokemon disappeared inside at once, with a flash of light.

"There. That's better," Alexi said softly and dangerously. "I'm glad we've gotten over that precarious first hurdle, Celebi, it' so nice to know you're here watching over me, guiding me every step of the way."

She turned to face Celebi, who was grinning hysterically.

"Oh, stop it," Alexi growled half-heartedly, defeated. Celebi's sing continued, but the humour in the situation quickly extinguished. Something menacing had just barked loudly, very nearby.

"Celebi…" Alexi whimpered. "What was that?" Celebi raised a trembling finger and pointed to the tree behind Alexi.

The Poochyena had its teeth bared and advanced slowly on Alexi, its eyes glowing with the anticipation of a fight. Alexi turned to run, and saw a second Poochyena appear from the trees- and another, and another. Celebi and Alexi backed away simultaneously, closing in on themselves.

The Poochyena barked and snapped viciously, and lunged at Alexi, pushing her to the ground with lots of little, sharp, pointy claws. She threw one off her and it hit a tree and whimpered; another one bit her arm and she roared at it, madly trying to shake it off. She jumped onto her feet and swung the Poochyena on her arm into another tree, and as she did so, two more attached themselves to her ankles. Four Poochyena bashed into Alexi's back, and she fell forward, throwing her arms in front of her and landing on the muddy ground with a slap. She felt teeth snapping at her ears and rolled over, kicking her legs out helplessly, trying to catch her opponents off guard and hitting one in the jaw. More Poochyena piled onto her stomach. Alexi tried to catch a glimpse of Celebi as she wrestled, but she couldn't lift her arms from in front of her face- two Poochyena were standing on them, ripping at her hair with their back legs. She screamed for help through a mouthful of dirt and doghair; she could still hear Celebi's sweet song as she felt herself grow faint. Her head was throbbing- the barking, stinking jaws that snapped at her face felt a million miles away. Alexi's eyes rolled back into her skull and she blacked out, the putrid stench of Poochyena slobber still fresh in her mind. 

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Refusing to give up the fight, Alexi pushed her eyelids open. She was upright, and the Poochyena had gone. The darkness had returned; this time more sinister, more alive than the forest had been. Alexi sensed that she was in danger, and needed help. She searched her jeans for her apricorn ball, for Celebi to light the darkness and show her what she couldn't see, but there was nothing there. The belt was gone. She was alone.

No. She wasn't alone at all. As she stood there, unblinking in the dark, she felt the beast behind her sniff her hair with its velvet nose. She felt her mind being snatched and squeezed, and something threw her onto her knees, grazing them on the hard floor. Alexi threw her hands over her head, cowering, pushing all the effort in her body into her mind, willing it to close itself to the horrible dream. Her ears picked up what her mind could not. The beast roared, and Alexi's eardrums burst and bled. She screamed as she covered them, trying to shut out every part of her body from the monster. Her forehead ached from the effort she was putting into keeping her eyes shut. And in the darkness in the back of her eyelids, she saw a light- not a purple haze as she had feared, but a flickering, flittering flame, only just visible through the trees. Her mind sucked itself through to real life again, and she woke up.

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A stick had stuck itself into Alexi's hair uncomfortably. It pointed into her scalp and worsened the throbbing that spread through her head. She pulled herself up from the ground painfully, leaving imprints of pebbles and twigs in the cheek she had landed on. As she rose, dead leaves and dirt fell off her face. The blurry scene in front of her spinning eyes came into focus, and the cogs in her head slowly started turning.

On the ground around her, several Poochyenas lay limp and unconscious. Celebi was hovering above her, and Alexi spotted bigger bodies further into the woods that could have been defeated Mightyena. Alexi smiled. How could she have been so worried about her safety with a legendary pokemon here to protect her? She spotted the light she had seen in her dream, and her braincogs clicked. People were coming! Celebi would be spotted! Alexi grabbed at her belt, fumbled clumsily with the apricorn ball and quickly called Celebi inside. The last flash of green light faded as the strangers burst in through the bush.

It occurred to Alexi that it might be a good idea to pretend she was still unconscious, but as she was laying down, she caught eye contact with one of the newcomers and they rushed over to help her.

The girl had her boring brown hair in pigtails, and a cute innocent face that matched her puppy-brown eyes.

"Are you alright?" she asked, pushing Alexi's hair out of her face to see her properly. "Did they hurt you?"

Alexi spat fine pebbles from her mouth onto the ground and looked at the girl. "I'm fine, thankyou. Thankyou. I'm completely fine. Who are you?" she groaned, slowly waking up, repeating sentences as the meaning of them became clearer.

"I'm Mary," the girl responded. "And this is my father, William. We saved you."

Alexi took in what Mary had said, spotting the chance to cover up for Celebi's presence. She turned to the girl's father, who was surveying her from above. He had broad shoulders and deep wrinkles in his forehead. The muscles on his arms bulged through the red flannelette shirt he was wearing. He was wielding an axe, and a Machoke stood dutifully beside him, holding the torch that Alexi had seen coming through the trees.

"Although it looks like you were doing a pretty good job of saving yourself," the man called William said. "You fight off all these Poochyena yourself?" he asked, motioning to the fainted pokemon.

"Uhh…yeah," Alexi said stupidly, her mind still groggy with sleep. She looked around and grabbed a thick stick from the ground beside her. "With this," she added, trying to make her story sound more plausible, but failing. She felt for the pokeballs round her belt and found the newly filled one. "Wurmple helped," she said, and Wurmple appeared from its pokeball, immediately wriggling away from its trainer and up the nearest tree, slowly, in steady panic. Alexi recalled it quickly, with an embarrassed grin plastered across her face.

"Bit of a tomboy, are you?" William concluded, confused, and Alexi nodded in thankful agreement. "Well, it's lucky we were here to hear you screaming. I was just about to start heading home. My woodpile's over there." He pointed. "Come on, we'd better get you home to rest. You look like you could do with a sit down."

William extended his thick, muscled hand and Alexi took it. She was hoisted up onto her feet easily, and Mary and the Machoke started back for the woods, back through the way they had come. William gestured for Alexi to join them, and she followed, grateful that her bad luck seemed to have finally come to an end.

William's woodpile, it turned out, was about thirty or forty chunks of log he had chopped from a newly timbered tree- William was a lumberjack. When they reached the pile, William swung his axe into the lonely trunk and it stuck. He and Machoke hoisted the heavy load of wood onto their shoulders and started through the forest, to an old, windy road which lay nearby. Alexi stumbled along after them, thinking heavily as they made their way out of the forest and to the town Mary, William and Machoke all lived. As they walked, Alexi realised the seemingly pitch black of the forest was almost entirely due to the trees- when they emerged into the light again, it was nearly dusk.

Alexi swung her arms against her sides as she walked, her jeans and plain black top torn and stained with Poochyena saliva. Mary ambled along beside her, occasionally glancing at her, and soon began an awkward attempt at conversation.

"Gee. You were real lucky my daddy and I were in the forest to hear you. If we hadn't been there…well…gee…I don't know how long you and Wurmple could have held off those Poochyena for. They're particularly vicious, you know, the ones in Blackwood."

"Is that what this place is called? Blackwood Forest?" Alexi responded, keen to finally find out her mysterious location's title, less keen to continue the conversation with Mary.

"Yeah. Only we just call it Blackwood. You're not from around here, are you?"

Alexi mentally kicked herself for asking the name of the forest and at the same time, started frantically weaving a cover story while trying hard not to show any panicking in her face.

"No, I'm…not. I'm from…somewhere else. Over there." She pointed in a random direction, and Mary smiled.

"You're from Kanto? That's a long way away, that is. Did you come here to study?"

"Um, no. I came here…to be a pokemon trainer," Alexi responded truthfully.

Mary gasped. "Gosh. That's odd. We don't get many trainers round here any more. Not many at all. What made you…"

Alexi's heart fell as she realised she had dug herself a trap.

"Oh!" At Alexi's amazement, realisation dawned over Mary's face. "You must be here for the Nouvella Gym Tournament."

"Yeah. Yep, that's exactly right," Alexi quickly agreed.

"Yeah, we're all pretty excited about it. I've been training my Seedot for weeks now. Me and daddy are heading over there tomorrow, so I can compete. You can come with us, if you want."

Before Alexi could answer, Mary was tugging on her father's shirt.

"Daddy, can the new girl come with us to Nouvella for the tournament tomorrow?" she pleaded.

"Of course she can, sweetie." Her father replied, and Mary smiled in rapturous joy.

"My name's Alexi, by the way," Alexi said to her grinning companion. She figured it was safe enough to give her real name- her parents had said nothing about having to hide her own identity, only theirs, and this whole making-up-a-fake-other-life thing was getting tiring, especially since she didn't even fully understand why her parents were hiding, or who they were hiding from, or what she was even doing here. Better to stick to the truth, sometimes- if anything, it made conversation much less prickly.

"Well, hello Alexi. Nice to meet you," Mary replied enthusiastically. She slipped her hand into Alexi's before she could object and they walked along the windy forest path together.

"Wanna be best friends?" Mary asked eagerly, and before Alexi could think about a response, Mary's puppy dog eyes took hold of her heart. "Um…okay then," she said, and Mary started skipping.

Besides, Alexi convinced herself silently, what with hiding her family, her past and the only pokemon she liked from the world, it felt nice to finally have someone to talk to, someone to share her life with. She had a friend, and she was happy. And that's all anyone ever needs, isn't it?

Alexi laughed at Mary, pigtails bouncing in the wind, and began skipping along beside her.

The winding, crooked forest path turned another sharp corner and rose over a small hill and when Alexi got to the top, she spotted her destination. The hill descended into a small plateau, which fell away into the air and became the jagged cliffs that bordered the area. The town was small- houses dotted themselves across the landscape, windows lit and chimneys smoking. Smoke curled its way up into the sky, and mixed with the clouds. Past the town, Alexi could see the vast, choppy ocean she had come across, stretching to the horizon, carrying small fishing boats back to shore.

Alexi made her way down into the township and when they reached an old wooden sign, the troupe stopped and William took his daughter in his arms and stood valiantly, chest high, taking in his hometown.

"Welcome to Goodeview," he said to Alexi. "My home, and yours. You're lucky enough to be staying with descendants of the original founders of this town- the Goode name is as impressive as any medal around here. My great grandfather, Jacob Goode, battled through the very forest we jut rescued you from, Blackwood, to build this town. We don't get many visitors, because the only way to reach Goodeview by land is through Blackwood, and most people don't attempt to sail round the Chalky Cliffs- too dangerous, you see. But the few visitors we do get appreciate the bravery and ruggedness the people here have developed to live in such a harsh environment and throughout Xela, we are respected and looked up to. I think you'll find yourself right at home here."

The troupe descended on the town as night descended on the sky. While Alexi walked through the cobbled Goodeview streets, she spotted more than a few fishermen making their way home with the day's catch. The town was built right on the cliffs- the ones William had called the Chalky Cliffs- and Alexi supposed that most of the villagers were fishermen, and climbed down the steep slopes to the ocean each day. When she had asked Mary about this, she had told her that the cliffs near Goodeview were decorated with rope ladders which led to the ocean, and steps carved into the land wound their way down to the beach as well, which meant the fishermen could quite easily come and go, up and down the cliffs on a daily basis, to earn enough to stay alive. The town was quiet and charming, in a quaint, touristy kind of way. They reached the Goode residence earlier than Alexi had expected- it was a little way up another hill, closer to the forest than the rest of the town, and was made of logs and bricks. It looked very cosy, but also very grand. The front door was decorated with a large, iron knocker which William banged against it three times before it opened with a creak and a short, fat woman appeared in the hallway.

"Come in," said Mrs Goode. "Oh, I see we have a visitor. I'll set an extra plate on the table, and we'll sit down for dinner shortly." The woman smiled at Alexi lovingly. "What brings you to our humble home, dear?"

"We found her in the forest!" Mary cried gleefully. "She's my new best friend- she's staying with us, and going to the Tournament tomorrow!"

"Oh, how wonderful," Mary's mother exclaimed. "They found you in the forest? I'm sure you can tell us all about it over dinner. Make yourself at home, dear, Mary will show you where everything is."

Mary grabbed Alexi's hand and nearly pulled her arm out of its socket as she dragged her along the hallway. "Come to my room!" she shouted, overjoyed.

Alexi liked the Goode family very, very much so far. Mary was wonderful, in a bounding, excited, enthusiastic way and her father, William was so impressive- strong and brave, yet calm and collected. Mrs Goode, whose name Alexi found out was Jill, was so incredibly warm and inviting that it was hard not to feel as if she had been taken in as one of the family. The whole experience was almost too happy, almost too friendly and polite and lovely, although Alexi had never experienced hospitality at all before, and so such an extravagant display of the sort did not rouse any suspicions. Alexi had a lot to learn about people; at the moment, she was blissfully innocent, and enjoying her life immensely.

Conversation over dinner was drab. The same, polite, careful questions got posed at Alexi again and again, and she kept on having to make up more and more story to get herself out of it. They already knew her real first name, but instead of giving them her true last name, Skendr, which would have connected her to her parents, she told the Goode family that her family name was True, which, of course, it wasn't. She had come here from Lavender Town, which, apparently, was some small place in Kanto, with only one pokemon, in order to begin what Mary's parents kept calling a 'pokemon journey.' Jill obviously disapproved with Alexi's parents' method of dropping her in the middle of a dangerous wood in an unknown land in order to begin Alexi's life as a trainer, but she didn't voice her concerns- each to her own, she thought to herself. At least the girl would learn to be tough from early on. However, it was obvious that Jill and William took pity on Alexi- they obviously thought she had been abandoned, or something similar, by her parents in an attempt to get her to be great. They fed Alexi extra servings of everything, and kept patting her on the back sympathetically whenever she mentioned anything about herself at all.

"Do you miss your mother?" Jill asked at one point, and before Alexi could respond, Jill took from her seat and wrapped her arms around her newfound surrogate daughter, hugging her tight, tears in her eyes.  
"Of course you do," she continued. "Don't worry- you'll have a wonderful life here in Goodeview."

When the conversation wasn't uncomfortably turned towards Alexi and her past, it was seated comfortably on the hot topic of the upcoming Nouvella Gym Tournament. Without asking too many unusual questions, and while still managing to pretend that she had planned to compete all along, Alexi managed to discover what it was.

"Nouvella's a wonderful place to build a gym, don't you think? Everyone who lives round the Chalky Cliffs area is very excited about it- it's the first time we've had this kind of exposure to the Pokemon League," Jill spoke of the tournament. "And isn't it a wonderful idea to hold a contest to see who the gym leader is? I think it's a marvellous idea- encouraging people to really get involved in pokemon again, it's like living in the old days. Me and William are very glad our daughter Mary has got this opportunity, of course. Small towns like Goodeview and Nouvella don't often get the chance to compete in large tournaments like this, but as it's so close by, we enrolled Mary in it as soon as the news reached us."

It seemed like a little town nearby- Nouvella- had recently been chosen as the home for a new gym for the region Alexi was in, which she remembered William refer to as Xela. There had been some kind of dip in people's interest in training pokemon in Xela, and so the new gym was very exciting and was generating a lot of interest from across the region, and in other regions too; it didn't seem at all unusual that a trainer like Alexi had travelled all the way from Lavender Town to compete. The contest started tomorrow, was held in the just-built Gym quarters in Nouvella, and would run for almost three months. Beginning trainers were to battle up to two pokemon of their choice against each other, and the winners of each battle would go on to battle each other, until there were only twenty finalists. Then these finalists needed to choose the pokemon they thought was their strongest, and go out and catch five more pokemon of the same type. In three months time, the finals were held, where the twenty gym finalists would compete against each other again, with their new team of one-type pokemon, and the winner of that contest would become the new Nouvella Gym Leader, and part of the Xela Pokemon League. Mary had been talking about the contest for months, it seemed, and had been training her Seedot non-stop especially. Her only other pokemon, a Nidoran male, had also received regular weekly training exercises, complimentary of Mary's dad, who had his heart set on his only daughter winning the contest.

"It's gonna be so fun!" Mary exclaimed later that evening, after dinner, when the two girls were curled up in bed. Alexi was sleeping on a spare mattress, next to Mary's bed, which made the small room seem rather cramped.

"I'm gonna be the next Xela Gym Leader, I can just feel it. I just know, you know sometimes when you get that kind of funny feeling? It's like that, I can just tell I'm gonna be the winner. I've worked so hard for it, it's gonna be awesome!" Mary whispered excitedly in the dark, sitting up in bed and clutching her blanket tight. Alexi lay with her eyes open, staring at the light under the bedroom door, pretending to be equally obsessed. The truth was, she was getting kind of bored of the topic- Mary had talked of nothing else for almost two hours now, and Alexi wanted to get to sleep.

"What are you going to wear tomorrow?" Mary said with a gasp, finally able to come up with something new, relating to the topic to talk about. Alexi sighed silently to herself and thought about her answer for a few minutes in the silence. Back on the Sanctuary, what clothes you wore from day to day had never seemed to matter. Alexi wore the same boring blue jeans and boring black t-shirt every day of the week- her suitcase was packed with similar attire. She had, in her possession, a warm brown jacket in case it got cold, but apart from that, her clothes were exact clones of one another. Mary, on the other hand, seemed obsessed with her daily appearance. Earlier that evening, she had proudly showed Alexi her wardrobe- neatly packed with pretty dresses, skirts and sequined, frilly tops and arranged in order, with a different outfit for every day of the month. Her hair and face was styled with similar attention to detail- Mary's drawers were packed with different coloured ribbons and bows, and different flavours of lip-gloss and lipstick. Blush and eyeshadow of every colour was arranged neatly in a separate drawer in the bathroom, and Alexi had spotted, among other things, five different nail clippers and an elaborate-looking machine used for curling hair. Alexi was amazed at her new best friend's sheer stubbornness to give in to nature and let herself reveal the normal, boring face she had been given at birth; she had never encountered a person who was aware of their appearance to this degree and, although Alexi knew she retained lots of her mother's natural beauty and so looked fine without any of the makeup or accessories Mary coated her face with every morning, she found it hard to conceive how someone could find that much time to worry about what they looked like in their waking life. She hadn't encountered many people apart from her mother and father, as of yet, and although Mary's parents were sometimes patronisingly caring, and Mary herself a little too preoccupied with her personal appearance, Alexi forgave her new family these flaws. She was having a wonderful time with her new companions in what she had first assumed was going to be a lonely journey.

"Alexi?" Mary pushed. "What are you going to wear to the Tournament tomorrow?"

At long last, Alexi gave in to her guilty conscience. "I reckon it's probably time to get some sleep now, don't you think? We'll talk about the Tournament tomorrow- we've got an early start, so we'd better go to sleep early."

Mary seemed a little taken aback by this response, but if she was, she revealed little of it in her voice. "Oh. Alright then. Goodnight, Alexi. Have a good sleep."

"Goodnight, Mary," Alexi replied, and snuggled into her pillow. "You sleep well too."

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It was still sunrise when Alexi started out with Mary and her father to Nouvella the following morning. Shoots of sunshine threw themselves across the ocean and sparkled on the waves. Sails on little fishing boats glowed with sun reflected off the water. Goodeview was a beautiful place to be. However, William and his dutiful Machoke did not head down to Goodeview and the pier, to catch a boat to Nouvella as Alexi had assumed. Instead, they headed back towards Blackwood, which was a dark grey colour, and misty in early morning fog.

"Come on, Alexi," Mary called. "Nouvella's on the other side of Blackwood, we'll have to walk quickly if we're gonna make it on time."

Alexi quickened her pace as the troupe started up the little hill to the beginning of the forest. It was beautiful in the morning light; specks of sun shot through at odd angles through the trees and lit up sparkly fog that rose from the ground. The smell was fresh and new- dead leaves and bark littered the air with their scent. Little twigs crunched underfoot as Alexi began trudging through the forest, her jacket wrapped around her tightly.

It was odd to return to the forest that had seemed so dangerous the evening before. The Poochyena had gone, the Hoothoot nonexistent. Alexi and the group were travelling along the dirt track which they had followed out of the forest yesterday; evidently, it led to Nouvella, wherever that was. Mary had let her Seedot out of its pokeball, and it trundled along beside her, muttering "dot, dot, dot" to itself as it went, happy to be out in the morning air. Alexi had neglected to let Wurmple out for fresh air- she had a hunch that as soon as Wurmple had the chance, it would start climbing up the nearest tree. Alexi felt better off walking pokemon-free, and saving herself the embarrassment of explaining how she had only caught Wurmple yesterday. Celebi's ball was no longer round her waist- it was back in her bag, safe in secrecy.

"It's good to walk through the forest in the daytime. It's much safer when it's light- Blackwood gets very dangerous when the sun sets," Mary told Alexi as they walked.

"Yeah, I figured, after being attacked by a pack of savage Poochyena last night," Alexi replied, half sarcastic, half curious about the true nature of the forest- she distinctly remembered her father saying that Poochyena, although temperamental, are usually not very powerful pokemon and so do not pose much of a threat to a trainer who happens to be wandering through their territory. The Poochyena she met last night seemed far from that description.

"No, more than that," Mary continued. " Blackwood is dangerous. Very dangerous. Once night falls, hardly anyone gets out of it alive. That's why, whenever we go through, Dad always brings Machoke with him. This forest has some kind of dark power. It's very scary."

"Dark power?" Alexi scoffed. "How much harm can trees do?"

"More than you think," Mary replied. "At night, over the Mightyena howls and the Murkrow screeches, you can hear the forest breathing. Fierce winds often hit Goodeview- not from the ocean, but from inside the forest. Something in here, some huge pokemon, is making the wind on its own. They say that the terrifying gusts are the forests warnings to intruders, not to stray from the path."

Alexi took a second glance at the trees surrounding her and noticed their grey, old, dead appearance for the first time. The bark was a very dark colour, almost black. Hence the name Blackwood, she concluded. That's nothing too unusual. Just funny coloured wood. This place can't possibly be as evil as Mary makes it out to be. It's a forest, for God's sakes.

"That's not all," Mary continued with her story, as if reading Alexi's mind. "They say that at night, it gets so dark that it's impossible to see, and so any traveller that finds themselves still in it becomes utterly lost. They say that, if you stray from the path and lose your way, a voice will call to you, telling you to follow the Murkrow calls. And then, if you do, the Murkrow leads you so deep into the forest that you'll never get out again, and when you're right in the heart, so deep inside that there's never any escape, you'll find a little house. And if you knock on the door to ask for shelter, a witch will appear, and take you inside, and drug you and put you in a cage and eat you alive."

"A witch?" Alexi repeated, unbelieving. She could still remember stories like this that her mother read to her before she went to sleep.

"She's not a witch, she's a crazy old woman, and her name's Demelza," William butted in. "She used to live in Goodeview, but she hated the place so much she went to live in the forest instead. Most people think she got lost and died, others think she still lives there, driven insane by the Murkrow and the Mightyena." Alexi suddenly had new faith in Mary's story. William recounting it somehow made it seem a lot more believable. "Some pokemon are cruel," William added. "It's one thing you need to learn about real life, Alexi. You can trust a person, but you can never trust a pokemon. Unless it's a brilliant Machoke like this one, of course," he said, and patted Machoke lovingly on the head as he spoke. "Untrained pokemon are plain dangerous," he warned.

"Well, Seedot's from the forest, and it's not dangerous," Mary said, clearly as new to advice like this as Alexi was. "And so's my Nidoran. And they're both lovely pokemon, and they were both untrained before you caught them. So you're wrong, untrained pokemon aren't all bad."

"There are some exceptions, I've already stated that," William retorted, but Alexi sensed that William didn't have much faith in Mary's little Seedot or Nidoran. They might have been the strongest pokemon William could find round here, but Alexi suspected that Mary's father hoped she would grow to love pokemon from other places more. He didn't seem to be able to put much trust in pokemon from the wild, for some reason.

After that, the conversation subsided, and Alexi, Mary, seedot, William and Machoke continued their journey in silence. Alexi saw almost no pokemon in or around the trail, although she thought she might have spotted an Oddish take flight as they turned a corner. The pokemon didn't seem to be very keen to get too near them- maybe they were as scared of trainers as the people of Goodeview were of them.

After they had journeyed for quite a while, Alexi was startled by a piercing scream Mary had let out spontaneously. William, who was ahead of Alexi, turned to see the source of his daughter's fear. It wasn't hard to spot. Dangling from an overhanging tree on a thin thread was a Spinarak. It had descended directly in front of Mary's face, and Mary had retreated back down the path, her head in her hands.

"Make it go away, Daddy, it's scary!" Mary squealed. The Spinarak clicked its fangs together and wriggled its little, furry legs.

"Don't worry darling, Daddy's here," William called protectively, and he ushered Alexi behind his arm as he approached the bug pokemon. "Stand back, Alexi. Machoke, fight!"

On command, Machoke walked forwards towards Spinarak and growled at it menacingly "Machoke, choke!"

"Kill it!" William shouted, and Machoke raised a fist.

The fighting pokemon hit Spinarak like a punching bag and it flew into a tree, smacking against the bark and sliding to the ground, its thread snapping and flailing about in the air. Machoke advanced on the bug pokemon as it lay on its back, squirming helplessly. Machoke raised a chunky foot and slammed it down into Spinarak- its stomach exploded through its head, and its guts splattered across the forest floor.

"Ewwww…" Mary said, as she took her hands away from her eyes.

"Good job, Machoke," William complimented, and Machoke returned to its master's side. "Choke, choke."

The party continued through the forest, the silence returned. Alexi couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the poor bug pokemon that had just gotten squashed under Machoke's huge foot. Surely, it didn't deserve that? But the feelings of doubt for William's judgement faded as they came through the other side of the forest, and the dirt path melded into grass. They had reached Nouvella.

Nouvella was a truly beautiful town. Its walls were built with elegant sandstone, and decorated with curly iron. The city gates looked magnificent, and were swung open to welcome the Tournament competitors. The buildings were ancient and precious, and shone in the sun, which was now high in the sky. This town, too, was built on the edge of the Chalky Cliffs, and Alexi was amazed to find that the town buildings continued down the cliff-face, shops and houses carved into the cliff itself. If Alexi had ever been to Italy, it would remind her of somewhere on the Adriatic coast- rustic and rugged, elegant and mysterious. Nouvella was a wonderful place, and it was now clear to Alexi why it was chosen as the home of the newest gym.

Nouvella Town Gym sat on the outskirts of town, facing towards the city centre, and behind it lush plains blanketed the hills. The gym looked almost out of place in the beautiful old town- it was brand new and sparkling, its bright white walls were almost hard to look at, and shining metal framed the doorway, the rooftop and the path that led to it. Clear, new glass twinkled in the automatic sliding doors at the entrance. The place was teeming with trainers- young and old, some with confident looks on their faces, some with nervous smiles. There were lots of parents there too, holding their anxious child's hand. All of them were bee-lining towards the glass double doors, which had not yet opened. A large clock sat above the entrance, its hands ticking monotonously. The small hand was at the twelve, and the larger hand was making its way round to join it.

"Come on Dad, this is it! It's nearly time to go in!" Mary shouted, full of excitement. She grabbed her fathers hand and dragged him up towards the gym, joining the mass of trainers already gathered there.

The clock struck midday with a tremendous dong; sirens went off, whistles started blowing and lights around the edge of the clock began flashing. The crowd let out an inspiring, heart lifting cheer and hats were thrown into the air. This was the moment they had all been waiting for. The glass doors opened smoothly, like clockwork, and the trainers flooded in.


End file.
